Passchendaele Interview – Paul Gross

don’t die
I’m Erin from watchmojo.com and today
we’re sitting down with Paul gross of
Passchendaele can you tell us about this
film
and the character Michael did you play
in Passchendaele the character Michael
Dunn is actually kind of named after my
grandfather and he was a veteran of the
First World War he fought in the pretty
much for the duration I was wounded
three times over many many years
it’s a weirdest script I’ve ever done
consider twelve years right well yeah
not constantly but I mean with the but I
started it on you well we’ll probably I
may never ever get to make this but I
think I’d like to start writing it so it
slowly unfolded into a story that is
about a soldier returns home he’s
shell-shocked and a nurse do you think
it’s actually possible to picture what
it’s like to be at war it’s an
interesting question because I think you
can only get so close to it the
battlefield the sequences in the film
are very visceral very real and they’re
really unadorned it was miserable well I
was gonna ask you how difficult the
shoot was and just any any stories that
stand out from onset every day the rain
and we had this big rain choice but a
hundred yards on the water all came out
of the Elbe River which is fed by a
glacier so it’s sub-zero on it so I
would set a shot and we’d have all the
explosive charges and scribs and
everything ready and then the ad would
say rain up and that was the worst
command you could ever hear everyone so
how hard is it to be actor writer and
director and sort of since was such a
personal story did you have to step away
from the connection or really it wasn’t
that hard it just makes for a longer day
so you know
but I have surrounded by extraordinary
actor scene if you’re doing a scene with
Carrie and out on us is not I don’t have
to tell her to watch she’s quite a bit
better than I am anyway
honestly I think it was weirder for them
because of you and I were doing a scene
and you come to be into the dialogue
okay cut
that’s and then I wander off and look at
the monitor and come back so we need to
do one more can be louder so I think I
was always moved on the move I think for
them it was just maybe a bit more
peculiar this of course is pretty huge
from as in terms of Canadian standards
how did the whole process go of getting
the funding and getting this going
Canadian financing models the sort of
top at about seven or eight million and
if you want to restage the first forward
you’re gonna need a little more money
but yeah it took a long time it was like
four years of flying around dinners with
really rich guys dinners with
billionaires they called it as I wish I
had a little camera yeah like a secret
camera and I could have made a great
documentary